July 2, 2007
The USA Network has a great science fiction series called The 4400, which could just as easily be named Transhumanism TV. The plot is about “the 4400,” people who were abducted by aliens or future human time travelers, and who … Read More
July 2, 2007
The KC Star is, in my view, the most biased newspaper in the country in its reporting on the ESCR/human cloning controversy. For example, when the political decision was made by promoters of human cloning research in MO to rename … Read More
July 1, 2007
I haven’t read Liberalism’s Troubled Search for Equality yet, but it looks as if it takes a good approach. Here’s the Amazon description: In Liberalism’s Troubled Search for Equality, Robert P. Jones presents a penetrating examination of physician-assisted suicide that … Read More
June 30, 2007
Nearly two months ago, I posted an entry about the science journal Nature Neuroscience’s unfair editorial attack on Dr. Maureen Condic because she dared to question embryonic stem cell research dogma that ES cells offer the best hope for treatments, … Read More
June 28, 2007
The creativity of biotechnologists sometimes astounds. In this instance, as reported in Scientific American, scientists transformed one type of bacteria into another by transferring the latter’s total genetic makeup into the former. Why transmute one species into another? As radical … Read More
June 28, 2007
Keep in mind this isn’t peer reviewed, hasn’t been replicated, and was released as part of a PR move, but get this: From May 2006 to January 2007, 25 patients with SCI were treated at Luis Vernaza Hospital in Guayaquil, … Read More
June 28, 2007
The Hastings Center Report is probably the most prestigious bioethics journal in the world. Thus, when an opinion article appears in its pages, the ideas expressed are definitely in play among the bioethical elite. I bring this up because an … Read More
June 27, 2007
We often think of “suicide tourism,” as sick or despairing people traveling to a suicide friendly venue like Switzerland to have help shuffling off this mortal coil. Several years ago, George Exoo, then a Unitarian minister, did the suicide circuit … Read More
June 26, 2007
The UK’s National Health Care service is such a mess that some are now openly calling for explicit health care rationing. (Of course, ad hoc or sub rosa rationing already exists within the NHS.) One idea, according to this article … Read More
June 26, 2007
Some of our discussions here at SHS about human exceptionalism have considered the prospect for Artificial Intelligence (AI), and engaged the advocacy by some that such intelligent computers or robots–meaning those that had attained true consciousness–be declared persons and accorded … Read More
June 25, 2007
A Canadian woman with MS traveled to Switzerland with her husband for assisted suicide. The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition has demanded a legal investigation. I doubt that will happen, but I post this story because I want y’all to look at … Read More
June 24, 2007
Columnist Jeff Jacoby has written a very good column in the Boston Globe about the hue and cry among pro ESCR advocates in the wake of President Bush’s veto of expanded federal funding criteria. Jacobi, who inhabits the right of … Read More
June 23, 2007
Get ready for the “manimals.” In Sunday’s Washington Post, Will Saletan describes how some scientists have cut themselves loose from the tether of self restraint and are busily planning the creation of human/animal chimeras with increasingly human attributes. From his … Read More
June 22, 2007
I have decided to highlight stories like this because I have concluded that the bitter ethical controversies over ESCR and human cloning have distorted the true picture of what is happening in the exciting field of biotechnology. So much of … Read More
June 22, 2007
I was on a radio program today, and the host played for my comment a shameless clip from an AP report depicting a Parkinson’s patient’s fury at President Bush for vetoing expanded federal funding for ESCR because he believes–because that … Read More
June 21, 2007
This report confirms past research demonstrating that many people diagnosed as unconscious–aren’t, or at least, many who are unconscious eventually wake up. Around a quarter of patients in an acute vegetative state when they are first admitted to hospital have … Read More
June 19, 2007
Last year, Robert Lanza of Advanced Cell Technology, claimed to have derived human embryonic stem cells without destroying embryos. That report turned out to be, shall we say, exaggerated. In fact, ACT’s researchers had destroyed all the embryos they worked … Read More
June 17, 2007
The New York Times Magazine published an important article today about pain control and the fear put into doctors by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) that treating patients too aggressively with opioids (narcotics) could be dangerous to one’s freedom. The … Read More
June 16, 2007
I don’t really care what bioethicist Ronald M. Green thinks (and, I am sure, he doesn’t care about my opinions). I bring Green up because he is the head of the Advanced Cell Technology bioethics advisory committee, and a professor … Read More
June 15, 2007
Governor Mitt Romney, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, has a piece in today’s NRO promoting “alternatives” to embryonic stem cell research. Skipping over his partisan arguments, here is the crux of his column: I studied the issue … Read More
June 15, 2007
New York Times columnist David Brooks weighs in on human genetic engineering with some pithy points and a disturbing passivity. (No link available.) First, the pithy points: [A]Harris poll suggested that more than 40 percent of Americans would use genetic … Read More
June 14, 2007
We have yet to ensure equal rights for humans, some demand “rights” for animals, and now we have a group dedicated to ensuring equal rights for robots–when they exist, that is. What rights would those be? After all, robots would … Read More
June 13, 2007
This story is really a tragic tale of how rejecting human exceptionalism leads to the deaths of those deemed inferior–in this case girls–mostly in Asia. According to the United Nations, 60 million female fetuses or baby girls are “missing”–meaning they … Read More
June 12, 2007
Well, lo and behold: Just as a study was released showing that neural stem cells may be efficacious in treating Parkinson’s, another report shows that a drug used for high blood pressure may also provide relief. From the Scientific American … Read More
June 12, 2007
I hope this is as big a deal as it seems. Adult neural stem cells taken from cadaver fetuses–remember adult stem cells is a popular term–have dramatically reduced the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, according to a report in the Proceedings … Read More
